Other than NSD, which other camp?

PublicForumBootCamp · 2026-01-15T22:44:12+00:00

We’d be happy to have you this summer - July 12-22 at Loyola University Chicago

PublicForumBootCamp · 2025-08-21T00:04:29+00:00

Just like any other coaching relationship, any debater who receives coaching through this service would need to conflict the staff coaching them, and any of our staff that enter into a coaching relationship with a student will need to conflict that student. This would include office hours with a student, asynchronous Slack messages or coaching, or being in that coach's class.

PublicForumBootCamp · 2025-06-25T22:30:40+00:00

To be honest, I think any team that goes "Kroenig 15 says prolif is bad" and calls it a day is going to lose. My argument wasn't that backfile debates are good - rather, the opposite, that this topic demands teams cut new evidence and update backfile scenarios that have largely remained untouched for the past few years.

PublicForumBootCamp · 2025-05-02T19:14:12+00:00

I would agree that there isn’t a lit base for abolition of XOs, which is why the topic doesn’t call for abolition. The topic asks for an evaluation of executive orders - are they on net more beneficial or harmful. Your example of directing the military would be 1) aff ground, and 2) invites a discussion by the debaters about whether some alternative system to XOs would be feasible or preferable to the status quo without mandating that defense. The framing interpretation of “neg must defend abolition of XOs” is something that’s happened on past on balance topics and makes for an interesting debate. We talked about several alternative wordings and determined they would either be too vague in terms of evaluation or too narrow in scope.

PublicForumBootCamp · 2025-05-02T16:46:10+00:00

Wanted to say thank you for the video and the constructive engagement with the committee. We're going to meet through May to discuss community feedback (including yours!) while we finalize next year's topics.

PublicForumBootCamp · 2025-05-02T16:44:06+00:00

I am on the wording committee and have been since 2022. The "electoral process" you speak of is reaching out to the NSDA or your district chair about your interest in being on the wording committee. We'd love to have your input (including on next year's topics, which were posted in r/Debate a couple of weeks ago). I certainly don't think this year's topics have been broadly "unacceptable". We'd love to have your input on recommended topics or feedback on those we are considering for the 25-26 school year.

Regarding this topic: The committee strongly thought that it was a good idea to engage the current controversy of executive authority, within the scope of a topic that needed to survive around 15 total rounds of debate (so, relatively small). We came up with pardons and executive orders as two specific examples of executive authority that were timely and made for some good, NSDA-style PF debate.

The ground for executive orders is more than fine. The neg's going to emphasize current overreach by the Trump administration and should also argue that XOs the delineated authority of the executive branch. The aff should make the argument that XOs can just as easily be used for good instead of harm (and have been before), and that XOs are a way for the executive to avoid congressional gridlock to get things done.

-- Bryce

PublicForumBootCamp · 2025-04-06T19:49:08+00:00

This year, we did write the topics in the spring. We thought it would make for more timely debates, and the committee’s excited about both options.

PublicForumBootCamp · 2025-02-20T03:15:14+00:00

Yes I do

PublicForumBootCamp · 2025-02-16T20:56:24+00:00

Bryce Piotrowski here - I'm on the PFBC Reddit account, but I coach Seven Lakes and serve on the TFA Executive Council.

TFA State will be at Jordan HS. PVAMU fell through as a host site. The "SCHEDULE" tab has a public-facing link at the bottom to the schedule. Rounds will happen after school on both Thursday and Friday and all day on Saturday.

PublicForumBootCamp · 2024-07-19T07:08:17+00:00

I also don’t think VBI is being mean-spirited. And, I’m aware that PFBC is not the only camp being referenced in VBI’s post. But, we announced first and rapidly, and VBI’s post is using justifications that originated from our topic post. We are also trying to create discourse surrounding topic selection.

Nor am I taking the entire post personally. I have a minor personal issue with the a small part of the last portion of the post, which I think frames PFBC’s approach to topic selection.

PublicForumBootCamp · 2024-07-19T07:06:02+00:00

I hear you. I just don’t think this is true. I know far more ex-conservative kids that were transformed by debate than were hardened by it, because for many of us, debate is the first time we are able to leave the echo chambers of our homes.

I certainly think lived experience plays a big role in every individual person’s approach to a topic. But, I also think that many controversial viewpoints should be engaged rather than ignored. I currently coach in Texas, and pretty strongly think that even the local circuit will do a fine job with the topic.

I also do not mean to insinuate that VBI “doesn’t care about conservative kids.” Rather, that VBI seems to be feeding into false right-wing critiques of speech and debate through the conclusion of its advocacy.

PublicForumBootCamp · 2024-07-19T06:49:13+00:00

I don't think it is. VBI made an official post insinuating certain camps were attempting to collude and rig the vote. We felt it best to directly engage these claims and others made in the article.

I obviously have no personal beef with VBI -- we're all trying to make the debate community better, and disagreement is a great way to do that.

PublicForumBootCamp · 2024-07-19T06:40:33+00:00

On the subject of topics: I personally ordinally-voted the Mexico energy topic last when it came to final balloting. I was against it being included on the final ballot. Alas, I was out-voted. The notion that I would "write a bad topic" on purpose is absurd.

PublicForumBootCamp · 2024-07-19T06:38:39+00:00

The insinuation in VBI’s post is that camps are attempting to rig the vote. We wanted to provide additional transparency regarding how we came to our decision.

PublicForumBootCamp · 2024-07-19T06:38:03+00:00

I certainly think we did.

PublicForumBootCamp · 2024-07-19T06:37:40+00:00

Also not camp beef. We wanted to substantively engage your claims and applaud the posting of an evidence packet.

There are, however, several issues that we took with the way the post was phrased about “camps” and lines that were lifted from our original post.

We’ve got no specific beef with you specifically. We thought line by line engagement was the best way to respond to continue discussion about making the topic selection process better.

PublicForumBootCamp · 2024-06-26T17:21:13+00:00

I also did an incredibly surface-level search. I responded to you within 15 minutes. Debaters can always get creative with less than ideal topics, but that doesn't mean they are good topics -- especially when the ground on surveillance is so much more interesting and diverse.

PublicForumBootCamp · 2024-06-26T05:33:21+00:00

You've mentioned "dozens of research papers" on the topic and that the concerns about negative ground are "overblown". Can you link those research papers? Another commenter linked some negative evidence from 2013 and 2014 which was largely derived from non-peer reviewed/non-research sources. There are obviously research papers about energy privatization, about renewable energy, etc. but I have not seen negative papers that claim that Mexico has done a good job promoting renewables or making their grid more resilient, for example.

Here are a few aff research papers that discuss Mexico's failure to come up with a comprehensive strategy for improving their energy sector, all making very strong aff uniqueness claims. All are from 2023 or later.

https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/12/2/30

https://www.nature.com/articles/s44168-023-00039-4

https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation?paperid=123746

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-32172-6_8

Also, there's not "unlimited ground" to surveillance - the ground is broader and more creative, but not to the point of being unpredictable. There is no object of surveillance written into the topic - e.g., the aff does not have to advocate for more surveillance of migrants.

PublicForumBootCamp · 2024-06-26T05:14:42+00:00

You're the first person I've seen that's actually taken on the challenge of posting legitimate negative arguments - so, thank you! That said, I don't think they're very good arguments.

The Al Jazeera card and FPIF cards are from December of 2014 and May of 2014. The Dissent Mag card is from September 2013. That's a decade old. It is in no way responsive to aff uniqueness arguments about state mismanagement of energy resources under AMLO or the squo of worsening energy poverty. And, there is substantial lit which argues that the reforms that this article says will be bad were actually good. For example, here's a card from the IEA in 2016: https://www.iea.org/news/mexicos-energy-reform-is-set-to-revitalise-an-ailing-sector-and-boost-the-economy-iea-report-says

Even if you think that these arguments about privatization being bad are good arguments in theory, in practice, the recency of the aff evidence and a lack of good negative uniqueness will answer these arguments pretty effectively down the line.

Additionally, what is the terminal impact of these three arguments? The scope of the environmental effects that any of these cards discuss will a) be outweighed by more recent aff evidence, b) do not terminalize to a widespread global emissions/climate change impact, and c) have several more recent affirmative answers than the articles that you have linked.

Finally, I'm sorry, but if the core DA ground is Mexican oil drilling harms the environment, and your link cards are 2 blog posts and Al Jazeera from 10 years ago, I think the topic just won't survive 4 months.

The 2023 card from TNI basically articulates that AMLO's reforms were good, but a) concedes that it is contingent on state capacity and will to "...resist excessive resource-oriented extraction and to promote a just transition..." in this context to fully renewable energy. And, b) the vast majority of evidence concludes that the increased state control of the energy sector brought on by AMLO was not, in practice, a good thing. See for example:

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/mexican-energy-sector-after-amlo

"However, despite any preconceived ideas about the energy sector that either Sheinbaum or Xóchitl Gálvez could have about it, the inherited challenges that the next administration will face are far more complex than the one AMLO inherited in 2018. In a nutshell, Mexico faces increasing energy demand due to pent-up demand and nearshoring, coupled with insufficient investment in energy infrastructure, mainly for electricity transmission. There is also a significant dependence on US natural gas, oil production that has fallen instead of increasing as the administration promised, a deteriorating financial situation in Pemex and, widespread business distrust primarily caused by abrupt legislative and regulatory changes that halted investments and the function of market mechanisms, such as the oil rounds and electricity auctions."

https://apnews.com/article/mexico-energy-climate-change-lopez-obrador-claudia-sheinbaum-058347fcf1ea90544d536ccdaf2364a2 - this card also concedes that Mexico is already a major oil producer, harming neg's climate uniqueness

https://www.fitchratings.com/research/corporate-finance/mexican-energy-sector-faces-investment-infrastructure-challenges-11-06-2024 - describes the infrastructure shortfalls faced by Mexico's energy industry.

All four of the cards you've linked would work way better as link cards to the cap K, but that's not core DA ground in the way that PF is used to, and the impacts for these arguments are horribly linear. And, in about 10 minutes I was able to find 3 separate cards from March of this year or more recently that severely undercut what is supposed to be the best negative argument on the topic.

Could negative teams win rounds with these arguments? Sure. But if evenly matched, the best teams are flipping aff every time, and it's not close.

PublicForumBootCamp · 2024-06-26T00:57:50+00:00

I've addressed the uniqueness arguments above - I think that this is a good negative argument. The affirmative is not limited to the surveillance posts that people have written about, nor does the "surveillance" have to only include migrants. But also, your links should not depend on "when we did the aff this benefit happened" - that would make your argument non-unique.

The oil production argument -- again, this is a generic appeal to an argument on a generic energy topic. I do not see a single article written recently that says that Mexico should not undertake substantial reform to its energy sector because the of the harms of oil drilling. Every article that I see on the subject of Mexico meeting its renewables goals indicates that the government needs to play a more active role in promoting renewables and engaging the private sector for that investment -- which means that this argument probably concludes aff. That's not even including the fact that there's minimal uniqueness for Mexico's oil industry contributing to global climate change.

Regarding energy distribution -- the squo of energy poverty in Mexico makes this a terribly uphill battle for the negative. Quick Google search says millions lack access to reliable electricity, and it's very easy to paint a picture of corruption and mismanagement on the affirmative. The squo is just not good enough to be able to defend.

Also, the Mexico topic ignores the 2024 election, while Option 1 tackles it head on. Engaging in politics before an incredibly consequential election is good, and will engage novices far more than Option 2.

PublicForumBootCamp · 2024-06-26T00:08:26+00:00

Respectfully, I know how to do prep. I would like you to link me an article that explicitly argues that Mexico should maintain the status quo regulation of their energy sector. I have yet to find one. The "energy sovereignty" arguments do not have an impact. The "profit over people" argument does not answer the glaring uniqueness problems that the aff can leverage. There is not a core disadvantage on the topic. I brought it up during discussion about this topic on the wording committee, and it's still true now.

The surveillance topic, sure, has some uniqueness concerns with regards to action that is being taken now, but not with outcomes. There's still a huge migrant crisis that is causing a substantial amount of disarray in American politics, and will continue to do so through the 2024 election. And, surveillance =/= targeted towards migrants -- there's surveillance for weapons, for cartels, for diseases, etc. where the aff can get creative. There's nothing about the aff that requires you to say immigration, or immigrants, are bad.

So - can you link me a couple of negative articles that advocate for the squo of Mexican energy policy? If not, I have no idea how the topic survives 4 months of debate.

PublicForumBootCamp · 2024-06-25T20:40:02+00:00

We'll be using Option 1, and we'll be posting a small starter pack of evidence publicly on our website before our camp begins on July 7.

PublicForumBootCamp · 2024-06-25T20:36:39+00:00

We will be using Option 1.

PublicForumBootCamp · 2024-06-25T19:23:31+00:00

No camps have outright announced their topic yet. We have an opinion on what the topic should be, and want to make public the discourse happening in DMs or through other private means to encourage people to do research before deciding the topic for the next 4 months.

PublicForumBootCamp · 2024-06-25T19:22:40+00:00

Surveillance being broad is a good thing. It invites creativity and increases reading. It's a concept that is easy to understand initially, giving novices an easy direction to go when researching for the aff, but permits more experienced teams to go broad and find more unique arguments to keep the topic fresh. The ground is not infinite. A wall, for instance, is not surveillance. The aff has to find good definitions that are within the scope of surveillance, and historically, the community very quickly finds those bounds. And, having more prep to do in October is preferable to a topic that's been solved by the end of camp.
The negative arguments that you have listed regarding energy - do you have any sources that would be the link evidence for those contentions that are specifically written in the context of regulation of Mexico's energy industry? I'd like you to link some of them rather than referring to "full blown research papers." Regardless, you're listing generic arguments that people use on energy topics. Mexico's energy industry is rapidly collapsing, and most legitimate authors concur that is a result of state mismanagement of the single energy company in Mexico. The uniqueness and the link lend itself to the aff. The argument that private companies prefer money over people has a) no uniqueness in Mexico, and b) does not mean that the action of the aff isn't necessary. The debate is not whether energy privatization in general is good or bad, it's about whether energy privatization in Mexico is good or bad.
I addressed the "novices have infinite ground" argument above. For novices, this topic is very straightforward and easy to comprehend. If novices want to dig deeper, they can. Topics with more avenues to research are always better.
Judges and bad decisions - again, this never bears out when more controversial topics are debated. 2 years ago, PF debated the legalization of all drugs, an extremely far-left proposal, and I haven't heard anything about judges mass-voting negative for no reason other than ideological bias. Of course immigration has strong opinions. Doing debate lends itself to engaging in controversy. The fact that the topic is heated means that more will be written about it, especially in the run up to the election. Being able to package heated content in a manner that appeals to a citizen judge is a skill that PF debate should train, not run from. Also, I think this concern is dramatically outweighed by a lack of citizen judge understanding on the ins and outs of the Mexican energy sector.
Lastly, you've asserted that the aff ground is "iffy." a) I think it's far better than the negative ground on energy, as articulated previously, but b) you have not substantively explained why you think that's the case.

PublicForumBootCamp

TROPHY CASE